FF7 Remake Guide: 8 Essential Things To Know Before Playing

Mastering the Materia system represents the single most critical element for success in Final Fantasy 7 Remake. These magical orbs fundamentally transform your party’s capabilities, serving as the primary method for customizing spells, abilities, and summons. Early game prioritization should focus on equipping every available Materia slot, with particular emphasis on offensive spells and combat abilities that complement each character’s natural strengths.

Strategic Materia usage and combat experience directly contribute to leveling your equipped orbs.

Each piece of Materia evolves through consistent use in battle, with spell potency and effectiveness scaling dramatically as they level. The transformation sequence progresses from base spells like Fire to enhanced versions such as Fira, then ultimately to the devastating Firaga. Investing effort into spell Materia development pays substantial dividends, as these become your most powerful offensive tools capable of eliminating multiple enemies simultaneously when deployed against clustered opponents.

Distributing healing Materia across multiple party members ensures you always have recovery options during critical moments. Equally important is maintaining diverse elemental coverage—assign different attack spells to each character to exploit varied enemy vulnerabilities. Even unused, leveled Materia retains significant resale value, providing additional gil when sold to merchants.

Barrier Materia deserves special attention as an early acquisition priority. While obtainable through normal progression, purchasing it immediately accelerates your defensive capabilities. The initial physical damage reduction proves invaluable, while the evolved Manaward ability that halves magical damage becomes absolutely essential against later game challenges.

Effective Materia management directly correlates with available equipment slots. Superior armor typically provides more Materia slots, creating a powerful synergy between defensive upgrades and offensive capability expansion. The optimal approach involves aggressively pursuing slot availability, even when financial resources appear limited.

Advanced armor configurations significantly increase your Materia customization options.

Upon reaching Sector 7, immediately invest in Iron Bangles or Star Bracelets from the weapon vendor. These purchases serve dual purposes—enhancing physical defense while dramatically expanding your Materia capacity. Completing side missions generates sufficient gil to outfit your entire party with upgraded equipment, making this investment both accessible and immediately impactful.

A common mistake involves hoarding currency for hypothetical future purchases, but early slot expansion delivers compounding benefits throughout your entire playthrough. More slots mean faster Materia leveling, broader ability coverage, and significantly increased combat flexibility when facing diverse enemy types.

Side missions provide both financial rewards and valuable character relationship development.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s combat represents a sophisticated fusion of real-time action and strategic decision-making. The ATB (Active Time Battle) gauge serves as the central resource management system, charging through basic attacks and taking damage. Strategic ATB allocation separates competent players from masters.

The hybrid combat system requires balancing immediate action commands with strategic ATB expenditure.

Blocking represents a frequently underestimated defensive technique. With Cloud specifically, successful blocks against physical assaults substantially reduce incoming damage. The timing requires practice but delivers exceptional defensive value, especially against boss encounters with predictable attack patterns.

Mastering Cloud’s blocking technique dramatically improves survivability against powerful physical attackers.

Healing demands strategic positioning above all else. When using recovery items or spells, ensure adequate distance from aggressive enemies to avoid interruption. Position yourself behind cover or utilize party members to draw aggression before attempting healing actions.

Proper positioning before healing actions prevents costly interruptions and wasted resources.

The Deadly Dodge Materia deserves immediate assignment to Cloud. This ability transforms evasion into offensive opportunities, creating devastating counter-attacks following successful dodges. The combination of defensive maneuvering and immediate retaliation makes this one of the most valuable combat enhancements available.

Deadly Dodge transforms defensive actions into offensive opportunities through well-timed counter-attacks.

As combat proficiency increases, deliberate character specialization becomes the next evolution in mastery. Each party member possesses unique statistical advantages and ability synergies that favor specific combat roles.

Strategic role assignment maximizes each character’s inherent combat strengths and ability synergies.

Cloud excels as either a durable frontline tank utilizing his counter-focused abilities or a high-damage dealer with focused physical attacks. Barrett naturally assumes ranged support and magical roles, while Tifa delivers exceptional close-quarters burst damage through her combos.

Advanced players should experiment with Materia combinations that reinforce designated roles. For example, pairing Barrier with HP Plus Materia on Cloud enhances his tanking capabilities, while equipping Tifa with elemental attack Materia that complement her staggering potential.

Understanding enemy attack patterns enables preemptive positioning and ability selection. Study boss telegraphed movements to anticipate when to block, when to attack, and when to utilize your most powerful ATB abilities. This situational awareness often proves more valuable than raw statistical superiority.

For those seeking to master the game’s most challenging content, our Complete Guide offers additional strategic frameworks applicable to complex combat systems. Similarly, understanding ability progression through resources like the Weapons Unlock guide demonstrates similar progression systems, while the Class Guide provides additional role specialization insights.

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